Last week’s Chosun Ilbo discussed South Korean laborers in West Germany. In the early 60′s , the days when Korea’s per capita GDP was $87 a person, unemployment was about 11%, and the nation didn’t make anything the world wanted, the Park Chung-hee administration sought ways to both help the domestic economy and raise foreign capital to spark development. Long before the days of Hyundai sedans, Samsung TVs and LG cell phones, the only thing Korea had that other developed nations may have wanted were its people.
West Germany needed miners to do dangerous and dirty work in the Ruhr valley and nurses to take care of their elderly. Park Chung-hee offered the Germans thousands of workers from Korea. Eventually, these miners and nurses would send back $50 million, which at the time amounted to 2% of Korea’s GNP.
More in the article.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, and South Korea’s participation in the Vietnam War had the same affect. Privates were sending home every month the equivalent of a year’s salary.
Met the manager of a meat processing plant in Australia that exports a lot to South Korea. They employ a lot of Koreans on working holiday visas.
Apparently the Koreans are eager to do the work.
Unlike the Filipinos, Vietnamese in Korea. The Koreans are paid the same wages as the Australians. Slightly more actually, but they don’t get annual leave.
One of my mother’s cousin went to West Germany as a nurse. When she came back to Korea, a German man followed her to court her. She said no, he persisted, she gave in, he begged her parents, got permission, got married and moved to Germany. They had two sons, before the hubby passed away in the early 80′s. She married another German, and her sons are doctors.
Park Chung Hee’s story of his visit to Germany illustrates the long bygone era, so different from today’s spoiled bratty Korea with candle lights every night.
Never heard of a German being that persistent before. Florence Nightingale effect?
Re #1
Korean soldiers in VN obviously were getting paid some money directly; witness the lively trade in consumer goods they shipped home, as vividly illustrated in Baekma and other Korean novels about the war. But it was my understanding that most of their pay, which was funded by the US, was paid directly to rokgov.
Another interesting article. Korean workers at U.S. chicken processing plants. It’s dated 1999. I’d imagine working unskilled jobs to get a green card ended after 9-11.
Damn… regardless of foreign brides, English jobs or chicken processing jobs, Korean brokers lie.
#5,
I don’t know whether most of their pay was given to the government or not, but I was told by a Korean Viet vet that they received what was considered a small fortune back then.
Sorry, a Korean Vietnam War vet.
Korean Laborers in Germany. Immediately I thought of massage mamas, dabang girls, etc. Ooops! ^^
Yeah me too… ^^
I believe it was more than 20% students. This was because many miners were illiterate. Students lied on their forms.
Ironically, though, the person who told me this, who was in the embassy in Bonn and came up with the idea, said that students survived better. A lot of the real miners cracked up and had to be sent home.
@6
Nope, it still goes on. Friend of mine is currently representing Korean people in those places who were swindled by their brokers. Those brokers deserve a burning death.
My dad was a medical officer in Nam for the ROK and from what he tells me, most soldiers would trade, barter, and “steal” (officers turned a blind eye within reason or just bc they also participated)whatever item they can and sent back to Korea. He still meets them annually and as a matter of fact pointed out to me those ajusshis who had made a small fortune in Nam and was able to start their own businesses in Korea once they came back.
#3 Spoiled brats like the ones in the candle light vigil is why I seem to consistently inch towards the right.
It’s funny how those who demonstrated against the military dictatorship for democracy now use/support the same methods to promote their agendas with the “my way or the highway” BS. If that’s democracy, I shake my head in shame. Such 억지. It’s disgusting…
# 2,
“working holiday”… isn’t that term a contradiction?
Well, do they at least get a shot at getting permanent residency in Australia?
“Well, do they at least get a shot at getting permanent residency in Australia?”
If they get shakuhachi or andy-in-japan to marry them.
#12,
I’m not surprised. You’ve got all kinds of people in the armed forces. Some are good, some are bad. It’s the same everywhere.
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